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Monday 20 July 2020

Should I continue??

Hi there!

I'm really in doubt if anybody is watching my posts in here or it's Instagram/Facebook now, that's why it's been a while since I last posted, I don't know, if it's worth my time.

I would love to hear from you if you'd like me to continue posting. If you do, please send me a message through here by the end of July 2020 at the latest.

If I don't hear from anybody I'll close my blog this time.

Best regards,
Kirsten

Sunday 3 May 2020

Tropic Paradise

Hi there,

Tropic Paradise - doesn't it sound lovely. To me that means sun all year round, stars in the sky at night, great beaches and clear water to bathe in and then all the colourful birds. However, not all birds are red, green, blue and yellow. Some are white as the below cockatoo and it also has a little touch of yellow beneath the eye and on the feathers on top of it's head, and a tiny touch of blue in the shadow of the body feathers. 

The fan palm was a piece of work. All those long, very thin green leaves, each one in no less than 6 green shades, wow, I never thought it was going to end LOL. I'm so glad that I started with the background, as - and I was right - I thought it was a massive job doing it.  


The bird was so much fun to do. Seeing it come to life and almost hearing it saying "nice job, nice job" in my ears, was great. My sisters and I used to have parakeets in blue, yellow and green, when we were very young, and I could easily see them in my mind, while colouring this cockatoo. 

It's always fun learning to colour new flowers, and the orchids was a new experience for me. I don't think we've done them in class before. I can see myself colouring more of them in the future. 

This was all for now. Stay home and stay safe!

Please feel free to leave me a comment if you like my projects and if you'd like to see my cards/projects etc. on a regular basis, please join my blog or my instagram.

Be happy crafting!
Stay home and stay safe!

Saturday 25 April 2020

Relax with Art

Hi there!

A couple of years ago my big sister bought me a 1 year subscription to the monthly magazine "Relax with Art" for my birthday. I had seen the magazine advertised and wrote it on my wish list never in my wildest dreams expecting to get it, so it was a big surprize, when the first issue arrived in my mailbox.

These 13 (an extra for Christmas) magazines has and will still give me plenty of work, as the images are all A4 size and I have lots of stuff to colour besides them.

I just finished the below monster image, chosen among the many for one reason; the scale reminds me of a red scale, I once bought my mother for Christmas. When my mother died many years ago, my big sister got the scale, so I still see it. It was quite fun to colour this memory.


I really loved colouring the tiles on the wall, but WOW, that was a lot of work. I used techniques I've learned in my Kit and Clowder pencil classes among other things on the rust on the two cans, and on the cake, well pretty much all over the image.

I believe it's taken me about two weeks (an hour here, a half hour there etc.) to finish this image, and then I put it into my album of the big images, I've coloured.

If you love the image and maybe want to colour something similar, Relax with Art has a facebook page with lots and lots of free downloads (they put up some each month). Click on the title to see it.

Please feel free to leave me a comment if you like my projects and if you'd like to see my cards/projects etc. on a regular basis, please join my blog or my instagram.

Be happy crafting!

Friday 3 April 2020

My latest creation

Hi there!

A couple of days ago I finished the below image from Aurora Wings, a very well known digi stamp company to me. Aurora Wings also do all the gorgeous Sprites, which I'm sure you've seen coloured when you've surfed around on Facebook. I have a lot of them and one spring I used them to decorate the board in the hall at school.

The image is called "Whisper of the Sea" and can be found on Etsy here.


I've coloured her on Kraft paper with my Marco Raffine pencils (my FC Polychromous are dedicated to my colouring classes and nothing else). Luckily the MR pencils blend beautifully.

I decided to make the skin in blue tones, her hair in red/light orange, so it would stand out, and her sleeves - which I see as waves were coloured in aqua/teal nuances. Having started on the skin in blue, I had some doubt if I should erase it, as the waves would have been better in blue, but having finished, I'm pretty contend with the result after all.

I added some artistic freedom to the image by letting her rest on a beach and added som stones to the beach as well. I didn't stop here, but wanted to make a night sky with a moon, clouds and stars/shooting stars.

My moon is a bit chubby I think. I'm really happy with the clouds as they have exactly the shading I wanted. The sky itself was not easy to make on Kraft paper. It was impossible to make a smooth black surface even after having used a blender pencil. This became very obvious when I took photos afterwards. The background was uneven and the kraftpaper shone though the back colour in places. I took a few photos at various angles and the one here was the best of them, where the uneven background doesn't show too much.

Having finished my image, I put it on a black background (not shown here) and into my album with my big projects (A4 size).

Please feel free to leave me a comment if you like my projects and if you'd like to see my cards/projects etc. on a regular basis, please join my blog or my instagram.

Be happy crafting!

Wednesday 25 March 2020

Kit and Clowder March pencil class 2020

Hi there!

During this Corona crisis I think I've lost my cardmaking and colouring mojo a bit, I have all the time in the world - also now that I'm retired, but I find that I've not been in the mood to neither making cards or colouring as much as I usually do, I don't know why, but I hope that it comes back soon.  Maybe it's the depressing news on TV, press conferences practically all day long (yeah, yeah, I know, I can turn the telly off) and I have, so I could finish my March pencil class that I've been working on for 10 days now. Or maybe it's the fact that I can no longer sit for hours and colour due to my back. If I sit too long, it goes wrong and I face a couple of weeks of physiotherapy and no sitting down at the table at all - no doubt that this has something to do with it too.

Well, no more whining. I'm thrilled to show you my latest creation. Isn't she gorgeous? She was worth all the time I spent on her.


I particularly loved colouring the toadstools and the wings. Isn't it beautiful? I'm not sure that the colours on the photo are good as on the real project. The wings e.g. are purple, blue, teal, green, yellow and yellow orange. The green is from mixing the teal strokes into the yellow, and I don't think that's very visible on the photo.

I messed up the eyes a bit, as they are so small (the whole image is 17,8cm x 12,7 cm.).

The background was very interesting to do, as I had to draw in the trees myself. I think they're looking pretty good, if I may say so myself.

I can strongly recommend Alyce Keegan of Kit&Clowder if you're looking for a place to learn colouring (and sometimes drawing, but not that often). She offers classes in Pencils as well as Markers.

Various colour brands are mentioned in the class booklets with step by step photos, video tutorials and if you need it personal tutoring by Alyce herself - all that at the very, very reasonable price of AUD 35, if you subscribe to both classes, and as the AUD is very low at the moment, you can be extra sure you get something for your money.
If you chose only to subscribe to one class the price AUD 20.

On the Kit&Clowder website www.kitandclowder.com there are even a few free classes, you can try out first and there're tips and tricks and colour charts and much much more.

Please feel free to leave me a comment if you like my projects and if you'd like to see my cards/projects etc. on a regular basis, please join my blog or my instagram.

Be happy crafting!

Wednesday 18 March 2020

Take care everybody!

Hi there!

Today I have nothing to show you, but I am working on the next pencil class (March) in Kit and Clowder which will be uploaded as soon as I've finished it.

BUT

With reference to the Covid-19 situation, I want to encourage you to follow the various requests from your governments. IT'S so so SO IMPORTANT, what we ALL follow their advice.

Stay at home, no more than 10 people gatherings (or follow your governments advice), keep your distance, wash your hands often etc. etc., you all know them by now.

I live in a small country and we have taken very drastic measures to be able to get through this crisis in the best possible way. Denmark has closed down! Our borders have been closed - but not for supplies. Schools are closed, businesses, shops, services (dentists, hairdressers etc.), churches are closed and I could go on. People are encouraged to work from home if at all possible.

Even our Queen has encouraged all this and she has even cancelled her 80-year birthday celebrations herself.

Our government is working so hard to support all businesses in order to minimize closure of all sizes of businesses due to the Corona virus.

And yet everyday we hear about hoarding, negligence and now even criminals impersonating health carers knocking on doors to elderly people. All this MUST stop NOW or way too many people will die unnecessarily due to stupidity.

I hope we will all be able to take care of ourselves and each other as well, so stay safe!

Warm virtual hug from me,

Kirsten


Monday 24 February 2020

Competition piece

Hi there!

Having finished my pencil class colouring, I immediately started on the next.

My drawing teacher (Johannah Basford - authour of great colouring books) announced a competition on a free fairy house image from her book "World of Flowers". The image is available from her website, should you care to join in.

Each day I see so many gorgeous colourings in Johannah Basfords Facebook group, and I look and hopefully also lean from the images in there.

Johannah is more about drawing than colouring I think, so I've used some techniques in my image that I've learned from looking at these pictures and of course from my colouring classes in Kit and Clowder as well.


I.e. the background  is actually from a monthly pencil class a few years back, which I thought would be a nice addition to the image. 

It was not easy to do the background an in retrospect, I should have done that before doing the rest of the picture, as particularly the green contaminated the yellow, when I got too close to it. 
I'm also always uncertain about what colours to use for everything in such big pieces with flowers, but I think it's nice and rather simple this one. 

However, I'm really pleased with this colouring ad hope that you like it too. 

Please feel free to leave me a comment if you like my projects and if you'd like to see my cards/projects etc. on a regular basis, please join my blog or my instagram.

Be happy crafting!

Friday 21 February 2020

February 2020 Pencil class - Kit and Clowder

Hi there,

When I have the time, one of the things I love the most is my colouring classes from Kit and Clowder and this months class is no exception. There are so many techniques to learn each month and it is always so enjoyable and a great mindfulness thing to do them. 

I love the fact that you can keep layering colours until you are satisfied with the result. Sometimes it takes a long time for me to do a class, but that's mainly because I cannot sit in the same position for hours on end anymore, so in between chapters I have to do something else or sit in another chair/my sofa or take one of my daily walks.

This month the theme was a sunset on a Hawaian beach featuring a La La Land digital stamp. The La La Land stamps are soooo great to do classes with and we've used them before. Right now I have the Paris Eiffel Tower pencil class on my writing desk, which was another awesome class.
We've done farmer/garden images, a boy fishing, a fire truck etc. etc. with the La La Land digital stamps.

I think that's the stamp designer I love the most for my classes, when featuring people - like Power Poppy is when featuring flowers.

Well, no more talk and down to business, here comes my finished image:


I learned about the sunset sky and its reflection on water, the sand, a straw roof on a hut, the bamboo pole, the background with the palms, the heart in the san and the girl and her outfit. That's a lot in one class, but it's so fun.

When you think of how much work Alyce has put into each class - step by step leaflet, and each chapter video filmed as well, not to mention negotiating discount on the stamp used - and I suspect she sometimes does the backgrounds herself as well - the price for a class is really, really cheap and if you also buy the markers class there's a discount on that as well.
I haven't regretted signing up for both classes and will keep doing them. 

I hope you like it as much as I do.

Please feel free to leave me a comment if you like my projects and if you'd like to see my cards/projects etc. on a regular basis, please join my blog or my instagram.

Be happy crafting!

Monday 10 February 2020

Birthday cards for the guys

Hi there,

Below you'll find some birthday cards that I made for guys in my family.

The first one is for my eldest nephew (celebrated this weekend), the next for my youngest nephew, whose 20th birthday was celebrated late January and the last one for my nieces husband, whose birthday was a few days earlier than that.

I've used the same set of papers for these three cards, as there're something in each of these photos, that I can connect to the three guys. There's not any flowers, gems, bows etc. on these cards, as it's my impression that they don't care much about accessories on cards, so I've made them CAS cards instead. I also love to make cards without all the fuss.


My eldest nephew has a pair of fashion cowboy trousers just like these, so I chose this picture for him. 


My youngest nephew just graduated college last summer, so I chose a photo with a backpack for him, and he's also saving in order to get his drivers license. 


This card for my nieces husband symbolizes that he's an employee in a private company where the dress code might be more formal (jacket and tie) not that I think it's required in his case. 
I'm just old school and imagine that it's still like this, as it was, when I was working in a couple of private companies.

That's all for now. Please feel free to leave me a comment if you like my projects and if you'd like to see my cards/projects etc. on a regular basis, please join my blog or my instagram.

Be happy crafting!

Tuesday 14 January 2020

A birthday card

Hi there!

Just a short note this time. They can't all be long LOL.

Last Friday was my eldest niece' birthday and as every year for a long long time, I'd made her a birthday card.

However, what was unusual this time was the fact that I did not make her a coloured card as I'd stumbled on some awesome papers - girly colours and denim. I really loved them and thought it would be a nice birthday card for once.

Thinking about it, I don't think I've seen her wear denim since she was a little girl, at least I don't recall it.


I wouldn't put the card up here, until I was sure that she'd received it. I think she liked it very much and hope that you will too. Sorry about the poor photo quality, I cannot wait for spring and change of light to arrive.

Please feel free to leave me a comment if you like my projects and if you'd like to see my cards/projects etc. on a regular basis, please join my blog or my instagram.

Be happy crafting!